If you thought it was hot last year, you're not wrong. The Bureau of Meteorology is warning there is little relief on the cards, with 2018's high temperatures and severely dry conditions expected to persist until at least March.

Authorities say Victoria's SES received more than 1,400 calls for help during 48 hours of wild weather that damaged buildings, flooded streets and saw a helicopter rescue motorists stranded on the Hume Freeway.

A female Liberal MP who has retained her marginal seat by just 15 votes in the Victorian election is urging her party to embrace a measure "that effectively behaves as a quota" to deliver more women into parliament.

They are images that shed new light on the private life of the world's most famous female artist. But hundreds of photographs belonging to Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, on show at the Bendigo Art Gallery from this week, almost never saw the light of day.

A Coroners Court of Victoria hearing into the death of an Indigenous woman who was arrested for public drunkenness hears the mother of four suffered a traumatic head injury while in custody that likely led to her death.